Mount York has several bushwalking tracks, picnic and barbecue areas along with excellent lookouts that make it a very interesting place.

Mount York was the point where the Three Explorers, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth viewed the Kanimbla Valley and the 'west' for the first time. Their famous 'first crossing' and opening of the west to farming in 1813 is commemorated with lookouts and several memorials on the summit, one with their faces set in stone.

Mount York was the site of various attempts to build a pass to the plains west of the Blue Mountains, Cox's Road and Lockyers Road. These roads were all abandoned, but in recent years they have been developed into walking tracks by the New South Wales Department of Lands.